Periodic Reporting for period 4 - CHANGINGELITES (Changing elites: how social and institutional change has altered the processes of elite formation over time?)
Période du rapport: 2024-09-01 au 2025-07-31
Elites reveal the nature of inequality, allowing us to see the underlying structure of society. But, elites can also be the engines of inequality, driving forward changes ensuring the accumulation of power. So, when the people occupying elite positions change it says something about how the production of inequalities may have changed too. Most would agree (despite the paucity of data) that elites are different today than they were; but, what is contested is whether such changes signal a radical restructuring of the processes of elite formation. Two questions remain unresolved: 1) how has the composition of elites changed over time? and 2) did the major social, political, and economic upheavals of the last 200 years reconfigure elites through altering processes of elite formation? It has been difficult to answer these questions because of limited longitudinal data on elites. CHANGINGELITES will address these questions by creating a catalogue of the elite that is without equal in its empirical and temporal scope. This data set will combine information on education (schools and universities), club membership, parental wealth, economic capital, and family structure for around 120,000 people born since 1800. Alongside this data, we will also conduct 100 interviews with elites born in different periods, illuminating the varied trajectories that underpin this huge historical database. CHANGINGELITES will both shed light on the social composition of elites over time and seek to explain the changes and continuities within elites by exploring how institutional and policy shifts constrain and enable processes of elite reproduction. This ambitious, interdisciplinary study will radically alter our understanding of elite reproduction but, more than this, it will speak to a contradiction seen in many countries recently between the opening up of elite institutions and the massive accumulation of wealth, and in so doing will seek new ways to understand how inequalities are produced.
We have performed the following tasks:
1. Interviewed 140 people
2. Collected and cleaned millions of probate records from 1858 until 1990
3. Updated and reanalyzed data from our main source on the British elite.
4. Prepared and collected survey data from elites that has been used in our book
5. Published 12 academic articles
6. Published 2 book chapters
7. Published 1 book
8. Presented our findings at numerous international conferences.
9. Created and fielded a survey focussed on cultural taste
10. Analyzed over 70 life history interviews held in the British Library
1. Interviewed 140 people
2. Collected and cleaned millions of probate records from 1858 until 1990
3. Updated and reanalyzed data from our main source on the British elite.
4. Prepared and collected survey data from elites that has been used in our book
5. Published 12 academic articles
6. Published 2 book chapters
7. Published 1 book
8. Presented our findings at numerous international conferences.
9. Created and fielded a survey focussed on cultural taste
10. Analyzed over 70 life history interviews held in the British Library
We have already pushed the state of the art forward through our first publication in the American Sociological Review. This paper asks: How do elites signal their superior social position via the consumption of culture? We addressed this question in a novel way by drawing on 120 years of “recreations” data (N = 71,393) contained within Who’s Who, a unique catalogue of the British elite. Our results reveal three historical phases of elite cultural distinction: first, a mode of aristocratic practice forged around the leisure possibilities afforded by landed estates, which waned significantly in the late-nineteenth century; second, a highbrow mode dominated by the fine arts, which increased sharply in the early-twentieth century before gently receding in the most recent birth cohorts; and, third, a contemporary mode characterized by the blending of highbrow pursuits with everyday forms of cultural participation, such as spending time with family, friends, and pets. These shifts reveal changes not only in the contents of elite culture but also in the nature of elite distinction, in particular, (1) how the applicability of emulation and (mis)recognition theories has changed over time, and (2) the emergence of a contemporary mode that publicly emphasizes everyday cultural practice (to accentuate ordinariness, authenticity, and cultural connection) while retaining many tastes that continue to be (mis)recognized as legitimate.
The book we have completed is also, I believe, a landmark contribution. It was nominated as a ‘Book of the Year’ by both The Times and The Economist and it was also warded the Mary C. Douglas Prize from the Culture section of the American Sociological Association. As part of the award, the book was praised for its ‘clarity in argumentation, its impressive empirical research (“empirical triumph”), its accessible and witty (!) style that makes it “delightfully readable”’. They argued that it makes ‘important contributions to, among other things, the sociology of culture’.
The book we have completed is also, I believe, a landmark contribution. It was nominated as a ‘Book of the Year’ by both The Times and The Economist and it was also warded the Mary C. Douglas Prize from the Culture section of the American Sociological Association. As part of the award, the book was praised for its ‘clarity in argumentation, its impressive empirical research (“empirical triumph”), its accessible and witty (!) style that makes it “delightfully readable”’. They argued that it makes ‘important contributions to, among other things, the sociology of culture’.